


"I won't let you go."

by EddieSasspbrak



Series: Dialogue Prompts [6]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shared Trauma, Stanley Uris Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22159420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EddieSasspbrak/pseuds/EddieSasspbrak
Summary: After they fight It (the second time), it's hard to go back to a normal life. Having your one true love by your side helps to keep the demons at bay.Prompt inspired by one line of dialogue. Prompt in title.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Dialogue Prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575751
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	"I won't let you go."

Underground. It’s dark. It’s dirty. There’s blood everywhere. Richie’s hand is soaked in blood as he presses his jacket against the wound in his true love’s chest. The clown is finally dead, they’re free. But Eddie’s breath is becoming shallow and everything is beginning to crumble around them. Their friends are shouting, working together to lift Eddie and carry him out as quickly as possible. Even if he makes it to the surface, even if he doesn’t die down here, part of them all knows that there’s no way he’s going to survive this.

They’re sitting on the pavement outside of the house on Neibolt, watching is collapse in on itself. Bev is on the phone, calling for an ambulance. Eddie is half on Richie’s lap, soaking his jeans with his blood. Richie strokes his face, careful of the stab wound in his cheek. His eyes are unfocused as he looks up at Richie’s face, his tears raining down on him.

“Richie, I…” He starts to say before coughing, blood spilling from his lips.

“Don’t talk Eds. You’ll be fine. I promise.” Richie says, but he doesn’t believe his own words.

He won’t let him say it. Won’t let him confess his feelings this way. Won’t let this be their last moment together. He regrets it the second he feels Eddie’s body go limp on his lap, his anguish coming out in a scream that echoes down the street.

Richie sits up in bed, gasping for breath. His skin is slick with sweat and he fumbles for his glasses on his bedside table. He can barely see in the dark, even with his glasses now over his eyes. He turns to look beside him. The spot is empty, the other side of the bed cold. Despair grips his chest, making it hard to breathe as his dream comes back to him. Not a dream. A memory. It really happened. Eddie really was gone, wasn’t he?

A distant crash from the kitchen, followed by whispered curses, startles Richie. He’s on his feet in seconds, ignoring the cold of the apartment as he makes his way to the kitchen. The light is on, the water running in the sink and a cabinet door standing open. There on a floor, Eddie is kneeling beside a broken glass, scooping the shards into his hand.

Richie let’s out a sigh of relief, the tension easing significantly as he watches in almost disbelief. Eddie hears him and looks up at the other man standing in the doorway.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” He asks, standing and dumbing the handful of glass in the garbage.

“No. I was already awake.” Richie grabbed the broom and dustpan, sweeping up the remaining glass. “What happened?”

“I needed some water to take one of my pills. My hands were shaking so…”

Eddie didn’t need to say anymore. Miraculously, they were able to patch up the wound in his chest. Weeks in the hospital, multiple surgeries, countless transfusions and Eddie was finally released. In that time, he’d gotten his divorce, refusing to wait until he healed. He just needed it to be over with. Richie waited until it was final before he finally let the flood gates open and told Eddie just what he’d been feeling all those years. Even when he couldn’t really remember, he always had that feeling of someone he used to love. Someone he’d lost for some reason.

Eddie, of course, felt the same way. He’d looked for that same feeling all his life. They’d both remembered their time together as soon as they were face to face again. Sharing the hammock, hugging each other whenever they saw one another, sharing beds at sleepovers, their awkward first kiss when they both wanted to just get it over with. Years of denial and adolescent naivety, unsure if they were really in love. All of that came rushing back and built to that confession. That second first kiss, Richie leaning over his hospital bed. It wasn’t perfect but neither could wait any longer. So many years wasted, not even remembering one another all because of that stupid clown.

After everything was fine again and Eddie was able to go home, he realized that he didn’t have a home to return to. Well, that wasn’t completely true. All of the other Losers opened their homes for him, but it was Richie he chose to go with. Eddie quit his job, coming to the realization that he didn’t care how much of that life he left behind. He wanted a new life, a new story, with Richie. Still, forgetting everything that had happened was easier said than done.

Richie poured out the dustpan full of glass into the trash and put both it and the broom back where they belonged. Eddie had retrieved a new glass and filled it with water, taking a pill to ease his pain while he watched Richie clean up. When all was done, Richie came to stand in front of Eddie, wrapping his arms around his middle and bringing his head down to his shoulder. Eddie set his cup on the counter and wrapped his own arms around Richie.

“Why were you already awake?” Eddie asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

“Nightmare.” Richie said, muffled against the shorter man’s shoulder.

“Neibolt?”

Richie nodded, his arms tightening ever so slightly around the other man, careful of his wound. It had been six months already since they’d come home, started their lives over again, together. Still, the nightmares came frequently for both. The group text that had been started between them and the others had become more like a support group at times. Everything was still overwhelming. Sometimes they had a hard time believing it really happened at all. When the clown actually died, when Eddie had come out of his first surgery breathing, when Bill left Derry to test if they would remember and somehow still did. When they all received Stan’s letter, and even more unbelievably, when Stan had come back to life on the coroner’s table. They still didn’t understand how it was possible, but when the others saw his face, heard his voice, they knew it to be true.

Beverly had seen how each one would die after being exposed to the deadlights. Richie saw it all too all those years later. They’d all sat down to discuss it, coming to the conclusion that it was because It was gone. It was the reason they were all going to die, so now that It was dead, Its power over them was also gone. Stan spent a few weeks in a hospital after that, being questioned and having tests run. Articles were written about this miracle man who had been dead three days before coming back to life inexplicably. It didn’t matter anymore, none of them wanted to question it. All that mattered was they won, and they were all ok and remembered one another.

Most importantly, they weren’t alone anymore. Had Richie come home alone, without Eddie, he would have fallen apart. He wouldn’t have trusted himself to be left alone. He feared that everything was a dream and he would wake to find that Eddie had died that night. That all of this was just a coping mechanism to ease his grieving mind from the horrific reality. He had to push that from his mind. Focus on the warmth of the man in his arms and the feel of his lips against his neck and his fingers in his hair. This was real. This was real. This was real.

“Tell me you’re really here.” Richie said in a hushed voice.

“I’m here, Rich. I’m right here.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” Eddie nuzzled the side of Richie’s head with his nose, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

Richie nodded and pulled back but did not fully release the other. They walked awkwardly with their arms around each other back down the hall to the bedroom. They let go long enough to climb under the covers, Eddie settling into Richie’s chest as they laid down and got comfortable. Richie’s arms immediately encircled his boyfriend, holding him close. Richie had always been a little clingy, even when they were young, but he’d gotten worse since it all happened. Clinging to Eddie like he was an anchor, keeping him tethered to reality.

“Promise me you won’t go away.” Richie whispered as they both began to drift back to sleep.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Eddie said, his voice soothing as he smiled against the other man’s chest. “As long as you never let me go.”

“I won’t let you go. I won’t ever let you go again.” Richie’s voice was dripping with love for Eddie as he kissed the top of his head.

Both fell back to sleep, content, wrapped up in each other’s arms. The nightmares would not come back that night. When they woke things would be better. Slowly they would all move on, remember less and less the trauma that had bound them all together. They would live their lives happily, having defied the odds and survived. Once a year they would get together for the anniversary, just to be together and to celebrate their friendship. To celebrate that they were all alive. At the end of the day, they loved one another wholly and without condition. A group of seven losers, turned to lovers.

**Author's Note:**

> idk I just needed to get this out. Not feeling great so I needed to project onto these boys a bit and make sure they had a happy ending.  
> Also on tumblr at EddieSasspbrak


End file.
